John and Jane won’t come home when they are using.

The division we wish to establish here is the difference in the difficulty of opiate/opioid type addictions vs non opiate types.

Some describe an addicts priorities as 1) survive 2) get high 3) kill Something like this (I will find it). This is a type of rationalization that we are not at all used to and not able to easily come to terms with.

…you cannot (or rather should not expect to) DIRECTLY change a persons reference point nor can they, or rather they change as an indirect result of logical conclusion and reflective introspection (time!).

In order to cope with helplessness a family must take the stance that an addict must make the choice to change, when the reality is that there are some external factors that can have an immediate and dramtic effect on the addicts chances of seeking and adhering to a successful recovery program.

Safe houses provide many benefits in the form of different harm reductions. Among the most important benefits are affection, normal social engagement, nutrition, regular sleep.

Addiction like this cannot be reasoned with.

The μ-opioid receptor also binds endogenous opioid peptides such as β-endorphin, Leu-enkephalin, and Met-enkephalin. Repeated use of heroin results in a number of physiological changes, including an increase in the production of μ-opioid receptors (upregulation).[citation needed] These physiological alterations lead to tolerance and dependence, so that cessation of heroin use results in a set of remarkably uncomfortable symptoms including pain, anxiety, muscle spasms, and insomnia called the opioid withdrawal syndrome.

Kratom behaves as a μ-opioid receptor agonist, similar to opiates like morphine, although its effects differ significantly from those of opiates.[5] Kratom does not appear to have significant adverse effects, and in particular appears not to cause the hypoventilation typical of other opioids.[5]

One of the traditional uses of kratom in Thailand is as a treatment opiate addiction.

Kratom allows for a more measured approach.

Many past addicts swear by Kratom as a maintenance tool or a crutch vs cravings.

Kratom is cheap, kratom can be social (not like needles! (or smoking). Kratom is safe and its legal (here). And its not addictive in the important way that an opiate addict is having troubles with. Its easy to dose and it doesn’t have to set an addict back to day one (guilt free).

For the purpose of this writing Silk Road refers not to a specific dark web market but rather any safe and secure method of purchasing any illegal substance needed. The quality is consider superior than street level and is high grade.

Buyers were able to leave reviews of sellers’ products on the site, and in an associated forum where crowdsourcing provided information about the best sellers and worst scammers.[68] Most products were delivered through the mail, with the site’s seller’s guide instructing sellers how to vaccuum-seal their products to escape detection.[69]

According to a 2008 study published by Harvard economist Jeffrey A. Miron, the annual savings on enforcement and incarceration costs from the legalization of drugs would amount to roughly $41.3 billion, with $25.7 billion being saved among the states and over $15.6 billion accrued for the federal government. Miron further estimated at least $46.7 billion in tax revenue based on rates comparable to those on tobacco and alcohol ($8.7 billion from marijuana, $32.6 billion from cocaine and heroin, remainder from other drugs).[112]

Cost of Health Care
Cost of Poverty

Homeless individuals tend to be heavy users of police, ambulance, hospital and other emergency services. The Vancouver Police Department estimated that as many as a third of all its emergency calls are related to untreated mental illness and/or addiction, much of which is rooted within that city’s large homeless and under-housed population

The aforementioned SFU study found that it costs at least $55,000 a year to service a homeless person on the streets. A more comprehensive estimate conducted for the Calgary Homeless Foundation concluded that the total cost was $135,000 per person, per year.

The caged rats (Groups CC and PC) took to the morphine instantly, even with relatively little sweetener, with the caged males drinking 19 times more morphine than the Rat Park males in one of the experimental conditions. But no matter how sweet the morphine became, the rats in Rat Park resisted it. They would try it occasionally — with the females trying it more often than the males — but invariably they showed a preference for the plain water. It was, writes Alexander, “a statistically significant finding.”[1]

In 1986, the US Defense Department funded a two-year study by the RAND Corporation, which found that the use of the armed forces to interdict drugs coming into the United States would have little or no effect on cocaine traffic and might, in fact, raise the profits of cocaine cartels and manufacturers. The 175-page study, “Sealing the Borders: The Effects of Increased Military Participation in Drug Interdiction”, was prepared by seven researchers, mathematicians and economists at the National Defense Research Institute, a branch of the RAND, and was released in 1988. The study noted that seven prior studies in the past nine years, including one by the Center for Naval Research and the Office of Technology Assessment, had come to similar conclusions. Interdiction efforts, using current armed forces resources, would have almost no effect on cocaine importation into the United States, the report concluded.[125]

During the early-to-mid-1990s, the Clinton administration ordered and funded a major cocaine policy study, again by RAND. The Rand Drug Policy Research Center study concluded that $3 billion should be switched from federal and local law enforcement to treatment. The report said that treatment is the cheapest way to cut drug use, stating that drug treatment is twenty-three times more effective than the supply-side “war on drugs”.[126]